Often I write to disagree with a position taken by The Northern Star. This time is different. I, personally, couldn’t agree more with the editorial position taken on Dean Norris’ urging departments to eliminate restricted admission.

There is, however, only one thing I would caution. When you say, “Norris’ justification for (eliminating restricted admissions to) journalism is that the department should spend more time teaching. This point seems moot since all journalism does is teach … ,” I am very afraid you are falling into the trap of being set up by the IBHE. If all we do is teach, then why can’t we do more of that and spend less time fooling around with such silly stuff as research, scholarship, artistry and public service?

If our students—and their newspaper editors—do not recognize that faculty importantly do other things than teach, how can we expect our boards and the public to believe any differently? And, if our boards and the public don’t see the university as anything more than a mass teaching machine—disseminating information but not producing it—it won’t be long before that is all we are allowed to do, i.e., to teach things that other faculty and student on other campuses have experienced the intellectual excitement of producing.

Robert Suchner

Associate Professor

Sociology